In
The Invisible Code, the diverting 10th entry in the “Peculiar Crimes Unit” series,
Christopher Fowler’s two octogenarian detectives, sloppy Arthur Bryant and slightly more dapper
John May, take on a case that ranges from witchcraft and international terrorism to church history
and British art museums.

Bryant and May are drawn into the case from two directions. On one hand, they hear about a
healthy young woman who has suddenly died while sitting in a church in London’s financial district.
On the other, they’re approached by an old nemesis, “cadaverous” Home Office security supervisor
Oskar Kasavian, now surprisingly vulnerable.

Kasavian is worried, with good reason, about his much-younger wife, Sabira, whom he describes as
“rather like a Christmas tree: beautifully adorned but likely to burn the house down if left
unattended.”

Sabira, who grew up in Albania and may be mentally ill, has come to believe that she is the
victim of a witch hunt. She doesn’t get along with Kasavian’s colleagues or their haughty wives and
is endangering his chances of advancing in his career.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit, which exists on the fringes of London’s criminal-justice system, is an
entertaining invention, with its quirky members functioning as a slightly dysfunctional family
dedicated to unraveling unusual causes of death.

Despite its wryly comical tone, the novel takes its subjects seriously. When characters die, and
they frequently do, their deaths have weight, and the detectives’ actions have consequences.

Fowler, who shifts his point of view with abandon, crafts an intricate puzzle — equal parts
psychological study and intellectual game.

The novel bounces around London, about which Fowler writes with insider’s knowledge and an
outsider’s detachment. He notes how new neighborhoods grow in the midst of old ones, so that “an
Edwardian crescent of terraced houses, a third-century church, giant blue cement tanks preparing to
create a new town square and several six-floor blocks of council flats” are “crammed into a messy
collage so typical of the capital city that Londoners never noticed its strangeness.”

Fowler is acutely aware of the strangeness of the world he creates as well as the city where it
is set, and that awareness gives the Peculiar Crimes Unit series its intriguing combination of
weirdness and wit.